Photo of Ari N. Rothman

Ari N. Rothman

Subscribe to Ari N. Rothman's Posts

Ari Rothman's nationwide practice focuses on all legal facets of Internet and mobile marketing, telemarketing, and payment processing. Ari represents advertisers, affiliate networks, lead generators, advertising agencies, payment processors, ISOs, and others in contract negotiations, compliance matters, federal and state government investigations before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general, and private litigation. As a result of this experience, he offers a unique perspective when counseling clients and helping them find creative solutions to complex problems.

Contact:Read more about Ari N. Rothman

This week, California amended its automatic renewal and continuous service offer law (ARL). Key provisions include the addition of “free-to-pay conversions,” consent obligations, misrepresentation prohibitions, request for cancellation procedures, price change notifications, and reminder and recordkeeping requirements. The new law takes effect July 1, 2025.

Express Affirmative Consent Required

The law will require “express affirmative consent” for all automatic renewal and continuous service offers. While the ARL provides no definition, class action plaintiffs’ attorneys, the California attorney general (AG), and California’s Automatic Renewal Taskforce (CART) are likely to interpret it similarly to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) definition of “affirmative express consent,” i.e., “freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous indication of an individual consumer’s wishes demonstrating agreement by the individual, such as by an affirmative action, following a clear and conspicuous disclosure to the individual.”Continue Reading California Amends Autorenewal Law, with Stricter Consent Requirements and a “One Save” Rule: Fast VAST Update

Consider these six options for challenging your competitors’ advertising and marketing claims—each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
Continue Reading Event in Review: Why Can They Say That, but I Can’t? How to Challenge Your Competitors’ Advertising While Avoiding Being Targeted

Join us as we spotlight select chapters of Venable’s popular Advertising Law Tool Kit, which helps marketing teams navigate their organization’s legal risk. Click here to download the entire Tool Kit, and tune in to the Ad Law Tool Kit Show podcast, to hear an author of this chapter dive deeper into telemarketing and texting in this week’s episode.

Telephone and text message marketing poses private litigation risks and regulatory hurdles that should be considered before any campaign. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and states enforce do-not-call (DNC) laws and impose multiple other requirements regarding calling manner, disclosures, consent, opt-out, calling hour limits, caller identification, and telemarketer registration. Calls and texts made to cell phones, using certain types of dialing technology (including autodialers) and prerecorded messages (so-called robocalls), require particular attention, as much of the enforcement and litigation in this area involve texting and robocalling.Continue Reading Telemarketing and Texting: An Excerpt from the Advertising Law Tool Kit

Join us as we spotlight select chapters of Venable’s popular Advertising Law Tool Kit, which helps marketing teams navigate their organization’s legal risk. Click here to download the entire Tool Kit, and tune in to the Ad Law Tool Kit Show podcast, to hear the authors of this chapter dive deeper into the issue of lead generation in this week’s episode.

In the evolving world of lead generation and performance-based customer acquisition, the quest for profits can lead to big legal risks, some of them too large for advertisers that buy leads through third parties. Advertisers that harness the power of lead generation should consider the best practices listed below to mitigate legal risk.

Lead generation best practices:

Understand basic advertising law. Advertising must be truthful and not misleading. Marketers and lead generators should understand what can make an advertising claim “deceptive,” as well as the appropriate use of disclaimers.Continue Reading Lead Generation: An Excerpt from the Advertising Law Tool Kit

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing to “ban the practice of obtaining a single consumer consent as grounds for delivering calls and text messages from multiple marketers on subjects beyond the scope of the original consent.”

According to the FCC, the proposed rule’s intent is to prevent lead generators from obtaining consent to receive calls and texts from multiple “partner companies” identified through a hyperlink rather than on the same page where consent is obtained. Implementing this rule could drastically change the way lead generators obtain consent for marketing calls and texts under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).Continue Reading FCC Proposes Rule to “Close the Lead Generator Loophole,” with Business-Changing Ramifications

When it comes to negative options, the CFPB has strong opinions. As demonstrated in its new circular, these opinions generally align with those of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has repeatedly targeted trial offers, subscription sales, and other programs involving recurring charges for enforcement. The circular reaffirms the CFPB’s focus—shared with the FTC—on combating digital dark patterns used to engage in unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices, especially when those techniques are combined with negative option marketing.

In an upcoming webinar on March 1, 2023 (RSVP here), Venable will be presenting an in-depth analysis of the CFPB’s circular, as well as CFPB and FTC enforcement actions and private litigation based on purportedly unlawful negative option marketing. For those who can’t wait, we’ve summarized the highlights of the circular below.Continue Reading The CFPB Joins the FTC on Negative Option Marketing and Dark Patterns in New Circular

Courts continue to grapple with issues surrounding Florida’s Telephone Solicitation Act, including what types of claims are sufficient to allege a concrete injury in fact to establish standing under Article III.

In December, the saga continued, with a federal court in Florida finding that the plaintiff did not adequately allege injury despite receiving five unsolicited text messages from the defendant between November 2020 and July 2021. In Muccio v. Global Motivation, Inc., the plaintiff filed a five-count class action complaint alleging violations of the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (FTSA) and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The defendant filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the plaintiff failed to allege that she suffered an “injury in fact” sufficient to give rise to Article III standing.

The court agreed with the defendant, citing the framework set forth by the Eleventh Circuit in Salcedo v. Hanna, which found that the receipt of a single unsolicited text message does not give rise to Article III standing in a TCPA class action. Applying Salcedo, the court found that there were no allegations of “financial loss or other pecuniary harm,” nor did plaintiff allege he was unable to use his phone for other functions because of the unwanted messages, or that his cell phone was searched, disposed of, or seized for any length of time.Continue Reading Florida Court Dismisses Telemarketing Claims for Failure to Plead Injury; Plaintiff Appeals to Eleventh Circuit

Webinar | July 19, 2022 | 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. ET | REGISTER

Although the concept is not new, challenges to “dark patterns” are rising all over the country.  The Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, state attorneys general, and class action plaintiffs increasingly cite this phrase in such complaints as deceptively enrolling consumers…

The laws and regulations surrounding subscription-based offers continue to change on a regular basis. Federal and state regulators and private plaintiffs continue to lodge challenges against companies selling products and services on a recurring basis. Moreover, new cases and law enforcement activity offer evolving interpretations on how to comply. Given the substantial developments, companies offering products or services on an automatically renewing basis should take heed.

The primary federal regulator of autorenewal programs, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), remains as active as ever in enforcing the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA), the federal statute governing online negative option programs. The FTC has filed multiple new lawsuits against companies selling products and services on a negative option basis and continues to litigate cases that it has filed.

The district attorneys in the California Automatic Renewal Task Force have also continued to bring actions at a furious pace, demonstrating their clear intention to pick up where the FTC has left off. In fact, the task force recently filed a lawsuit in California state court against Match.com, even though the FTC had already filed a lawsuit against the company. The California district attorneys also announced settlements with Classmates.com, Home Chef, CheckPeople.com, and Care.com, among other companies, and the consent decrees have imposed increasingly stringent requirements on the settling businesses.Continue Reading Automatic Renewal Programs: Latest Updates

Although the coronavirus pandemic has impacted every business over the past few weeks, companies offering negative option and subscription programs face a unique set of issues. On the one hand, the subscription model offers consumers benefits that are difficult to provide outside of this context (such as streaming services, online learning programs, and uninterrupted access). On the other hand, business interruptions — in addition to consumers tightening their budgets — have presented significant hurdles to the subscription model during the current pandemic.

For example, the current shutdown has prevented many companies that offer membership programs from continuing to provide these services to consumers, such as gyms, access passes, and in-person events. As a result, customers have increasingly begun to cancel their memberships to avoid paying for services that companies simply cannot fulfill. Online services are not immune to the fallout, as consumers who are tightening their belts and looking for ways to reduce spending have started cancelling recurring billing services, which they may view as unnecessary in the present circumstances.Continue Reading Automatic Renewal Programs: Reducing Risks During the COVID-19 Pandemic